Grickstorgl (1980-1982)

After finding myself dropped from my high school kegger party band for not being a bitchin’ enough guitarist, I formed this progressive rock band with my best friend Mike Thompson, and his high school chum, drummer Steve Kaelin. Mike had just recently switched from guitar to bass, and we fancied ourselves as the next Rush. We wrote difficult instrumental pieces called The Exercises, to challenge our musicianship skills. I later went to Foothill College while Mike and Steve enrolled in De Anza college. There they met a jazz-fusion & classical guitarist named Mark Martin. I was also a classical guitar major so we got along great. Aside from Rush our favorite band was Camel, and we learned several tunes by this awesome British progressive rock band. Finally we met another De Anza student, Brad Lee, who owned an electric piano and an Arp synthesizer. When our parents got tired of us making noise in their garages we all enrolled in Jazz Combos at De Anza so we would have a place to practice. Since Rush could hardly be considered jazz, we stuck to jazz fusion covers by Camel, Bill Bruford, Jean-luc Ponty, and even snuck in a Steve Hackett tune (Ace Of Wands). Our first jazz combo performance in the student union center was a great success.

We went on to play another couple performances at De Anza, one at a local high school (pictured above) and a number of stoner parties at the homes of some college hippie prog-heads who took us under their wing. I can still remember this really cool deadhead dude called Fast Freddy who, tripping on acid, sat agape as we were playing Camel, saying “I can’t believe they played the Snow Goose”, over and over again. Those were good times!